The effects of temperature change on the hatching success and larval survival of largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu

2011 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1200-1212 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Landsman ◽  
A. J. Gingerich ◽  
D. P. Philipp ◽  
C. D. Suski
2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 1330-1341 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Fetzer ◽  
Collin J. Farrell ◽  
James R. Jackson ◽  
Lars G. Rudstam

Walleye (Sander vitreus), smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu), and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) are common top predators across many north temperate lakes, but no previous analyses have assessed factors driving their combined impact on mortality of a shared prey, yellow perch (Perca flavescens). We estimated consumption dynamics of walleye, smallmouth bass, and largemouth bass during 3 years that differed in age-0 yellow perch year-class strength and evaluated the relative contribution of each predator to age-0 yellow perch mortality, in Oneida Lake, New York, USA. Habitat-specific diet composition and population densities were integrated with temperature and growth rates to parameterize a bioenergetics model and estimate annual consumption of major diet items. Walleye were the dominant predator in both offshore and inshore habitats, while smallmouth bass and largemouth bass were also important inshore predators. Consumption of age-0 yellow perch by all three predators was positively correlated to age-0 yellow perch year-class strength, but our ability to account for age-0 yellow perch mortality decreased during years when year-class strength was strong. Within each year, predation by the three species accounted for all observed age-0 yellow perch mortality in late summer and fall, but not in the early summer, suggesting other predators in the lake likely predate on the youngest, most vulnerable yellow perch. These results are important for understanding how diverse predator communities can alter the spatial and temporal availability of prey refuges and influence mortality of a shared prey.


2002 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 756-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J Cooke ◽  
David P Philipp ◽  
Patrick J Weatherhead

Male smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) care for their offspring from fertilization until the offspring disperse after becoming capable of avoiding predators. We used activity transmitters to monitor round-the-clock parental activity of both species throughout the nesting period, coupled with direct observational data collected while snorkeling, to determine whether nocturnal behaviour varied similarly to diurnal behaviour. In general, nesting males of both species were equally active during day and night, developmental-stage-specific patterns being evident during both periods. Consistent with theory, parental males of both species exhibited elevated levels of burst swimming (indicative of chasing nest predators) early in the nesting period. Unlike male smallmouth bass, however, male largemouth bass showed no decline in overall activity and energy expenditure in the later nesting stages as predicted from the greater mobility and dispersion of their broods, although burst-swimming activity decreased. Activity of nesting fish was approximately double that of non-nesting conspecifics, causing an increase in respiration rates of fish, estimated using a bioenergetics model. The results of our study suggest that physiological telemetry devices which provide both behavioural and energetic information enhance the study of parental care activity in centrarchid fishes, and may be equally useful in a variety of other taxa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David O Norris ◽  
Angela Geiger ◽  
Alan Milan Vajda

Abstract The widespread occurrence of gonadal intersex (presence of testicular oocytes) has been recently reported in populations of Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) and Smallmouth Bass Micropterus dolomieu) from populations across North America. To evaluate the historical occurrence of intersex in bass species, gonads were examined visually and histologically from Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass from museum specimens collected from 16 States. These fishes were collected between 1823-1965, before the widespread discharge of estrogenic chemicals to surface waters via wastewater effluents. All females examined had normal ovaries. Intersex gonads were identified in 17.8 % of male Largemouth Bass, and in 14.2% of male Smallmouth Bass. The intensity of testicular oocytes in some males was as great as observed since 2000. These results indicate that the occurrence of this form of intersex in these bass species is not a recent phenomenon.


<em>Abstract</em>.—Long-term studies in Ontario, Canada on Largemouth Bass <em>Micropterus salmoides</em> and Smallmouth Bass <em>M. dolomieu</em> have demonstrated that angling nesting males (both catch and harvest and catch and release) can have negative impacts on the reproductive success for the captured individual. They have also demonstrated that within a population, the male bass that provide the best and longest parental care for their offspring are the most capable of having the greatest relative contribution to the year-class. Furthermore, those males are also the most aggressive toward potential brood predators and, hence, the most vulnerable to angling. Based on those relationships, we postulated that angling in general, and especially angling for nesting bass, results in selection against aggressive individuals in a population, and as a result, the angled population evolves to become less aggressive, containing males with diminished parental care attributes, an example of fisheries-induced evolution (FIE). We recognize, however, that some change towards less aggressive behaviors may also result from learning and phenotypic plasticity. Controlled, long-term selective breeding experiments over 30+ years have, however, documented the heritability of vulnerability of bass to angling and, hence, the potential for selection to act on that trait. Reproductive competition experiments further demonstrated that the highly vulnerable strain of bass produced in those selective breeding experiments indeed had greater reproductive success than the less vulnerable strain. Because angling for Largemouth Bass has been occurring for decades, we also postulated that there should be some evidence in the wild of this FIE. In fact, we did find that the level of vulnerability to angling of nesting male Largemouth Bass in lakes that have had little to no exploitation was significantly greater than that observed for nesting males in moderately and heavily angled populations.


2000 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 570-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Scott Findlay ◽  
Daniel G Bert ◽  
Ligang Zheng

We compared the minnow assemblages of Adirondack lakes with top piscivores with those of lakes having similar physiochemical and biotic characteristics but no top piscivores using a subset of data collected from 1984 to 87 by the Adirondack Lake Survey Corporation. Native minnow richness in lakes with top piscivores was about one third that of lakes without piscivores, with piscivore assemblages dominated by introduced species such as northern pike (Esox lucius), largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), and smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu). There was strong evidence that at least four minnow species, including creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus), northern redbelly dace (Phoxinus eos), blacknose dace (Rhinichthys atratulus), and common shiner (Luxilus cornutus), were less likely to occur in lakes with piscivores; for a fifth species (pearl dace (Margariscus margarita)), the evidence is suggestive but not as strong. Of 13 minnow species, only for two nonnative species (bluntnose minnow (Pimephales notatus) and golden shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas)) was there strong evidence that their occurrence was unaffected by the presence of introduced piscivores. These results add to the growing body of evidence that the introduction of top piscivores to small temperate lakes puts native minnow communities at high extinction risk.


PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9614
Author(s):  
Jessica K. Leet ◽  
Catherine A. Richter ◽  
Robert S. Cornman ◽  
Jason P. Berninger ◽  
Ramji K. Bhandari ◽  
...  

Endocrine disrupting contaminants are of continuing concern for potentially contributing to reproductive dysfunction in largemouth and smallmouth bass in the Chesapeake Bay watershed (CBW) and elsewhere. Exposures to atrazine (ATR) have been hypothesized to have estrogenic effects on vertebrate endocrine systems. The incidence of intersex in male smallmouth bass from some regions of CBW has been correlated with ATR concentrations in water. Fish early life stages may be particularly vulnerable to ATR exposure in agricultural areas, as a spring influx of pesticides coincides with spawning and early development. Our objectives were to investigate the effects of early life stage exposure to ATR or the model estrogen 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) on sexual differentiation and gene expression in gonad tissue. We exposed newly hatched largemouth bass (LMB, Micropterus salmoides) from 7 to 80 days post-spawn to nominal concentrations of 1, 10, or 100 µg ATR/L or 1 or 10 ng EE2/L and monitored histological development and transcriptomic changes in gonad tissue. We observed a nearly 100% female sex ratio in LMB exposed to EE2 at 10 ng/L, presumably due to sex reversal of males. Many gonad genes were differentially expressed between sexes. Multidimensional scaling revealed clustering by gene expression of the 1 ng EE2/L and 100 µg ATR/L-treated male fish. Some pathways responsive to EE2 exposure were not sex-specific. We observed differential expression in male gonad in LMB exposed to EE2 at 1 ng/L of several genes involved in reproductive development and function, including star, cyp11a2, ddx4 (previously vasa), wnt5b, cyp1a and samhd1. Expression of star, cyp11a2 and cyp1a in males was also responsive to ATR exposure. Overall, our results confirm that early development is a sensitive window for estrogenic endocrine disruption in LMB and are consistent with the hypothesis that ATR exposure induces some estrogenic responses in the developing gonad. However, ATR-specific and EE2-specific responses were also observed.


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